#CheckandChip Day

Dogs Monthly is backing then National #CheckandChip Day, launched by Lostbox, a website dedicated to “everything lost and found”. With less than one week left before microchipping your dog becomes mandatory, #CheckandChip Day serves as a reminder that, in order to be reunited with your dog, you need to make sure the details registered on the microchip are updated should you move elsewhere or change phone number.

Buster

“Every day at Lostbox we get dozens of reports of cats and dogs that have been found, they have been scanned for a chip, a chip is found but the chip details are out of date. This makes it difficult for us to contact the owner and reunite the pet,” a statement reads. According to Lostbox, The Dog Warden Association has reported that “forty per cent of the dogs they come in to contact with have no contact details, or partial details, registered on their microchip.”

Buster the Chocolate Labrador is one of these sad cases: found in Knaith Park, Gainsborough, on March 30, he was scanned for a microchip. This told his rescuers his name, but little else: the phone number registered doesn’t work, and all that is known is that Buster is chipped to Yorkshire. Had the details been up to date, Buster would probably already be on his way home. Instead, he can only rely on the power of social media to find his way back.

Changing your details on your pet’s microchip is easy: all you need to do is contacting the database the chip is registered to, and have your contact details updated. Without the information to contact you – be it your current address or newest phone number – your dog’s microchip would be rendered useless.

Mia, reunited with her owner

Mia, a crossbreed from Monmouthshire, went missing from her owner’s garden in September. Picked up by a dog warden, she was taken out of a local council pound by Dogs Trust. The charity meant to find her a loving home, but a simple scan was all that was needed to find out she already had one, and to reunite her with her owners just before Christmas – months after she went missing, and fifty miles away.

Tracey Spiers, Dogs Trust Evesham Assistant Manager, says, “It was heart -warming to see how excited Mia was when she was reunited with her owners. It just goes to show how important it is to get your dog microchipped and keep the details up to date, as Mia may never have been reunited with her owners where it not for a tiny microchip.”